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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508982">lightning (unapologetic for who you are, that's a goddess)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts'>Volts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Divergence - s01e02 Four Marks, Canon Divergence - s01e05 Bottled Appetites, Chronic Pain, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Families of Choice, Ghosts, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Pigs, Pre-OT3, Pre-Transformation Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, The actual animal does not appear, Unreliable Narrator, mention of pigs in relation to Yennefer's stepfather's profession</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:55:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508982</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier is on the run from a lover's angry brother and in desperate need of sanctuary. He comes across a ruined temple and meets a woman he assumes to be a goddess. Quite suddenly he finds himself halfway from Temeria to Aedirn, with a mission to kill a farmer...</p><p>~</p><p>“Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away-”<br/>“Pretty sure it was Temeria.”<br/>“-far, far, away, there was a formidable sorceress trapped in a tower.”<br/>“If she was so formidable, why was she trapped?”<br/>“Cirilla, are you telling the story or am I?”<br/>“You should tell her the truth, Jaskier.”<br/>“Oh, I’ll Give Her The Truth, Geralt, just you wait.”</p><p>~</p><p>Meanwhile, Yennefer just wants some quiet to research cursebreaking in peace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Witcher Quick Fic #03</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lightning (unapologetic for who you are, that's a goddess)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written for the Witcher Quick Fic Challenge.<br/>Content Warning: Refers non-explicitly to suicide and a canon suicide attempt. Mentions the word Pig, the animal itself does not appear.<br/>Title Quote: 'Being brave enough to just be unapologetic for who you are, that's a goddess' by Banks, August 2014.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away-”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Pretty sure it was Temeria.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“-<b>far, far, away</b>, there was a formidable sorceress trapped in a tower.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“If she was so formidable, why was she trapped?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Cirilla, are you telling the story or am I?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You should tell her the truth, Jaskier.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh, I’ll Give Her The <b>Truth,</b> Geralt, just you wait.”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>“Come back here!!”</p><p>Jaskier runs, his long legs covering ground quicker than his pursuer going as fast as they can. His knees were aching, his toes blistering.</p><p>“You won’t catch me!” he calls back as he swerves around a bush.</p><p>The autumn leaves have fallen around them, earlier than usual, carpeting both the rough track and the fields surrounding it with golden leafy decoration. A waft of freshly harvested hay, and cow, set the scene.</p><p>Jaskier is a blur in burnt orange and butter yellow – the matching orange doublet caught in his pursuers vengeful hand. As he tore through the gorse and bramble he was quite glad he’d had the time to pull his boots on as he’d hopped to the window he’d had to climb out of.</p><p>“WHEN I’M THROUGH WITH YOU!!” Jaskier’s quite glad the man sounds out of puff, he himself feels he won’t be able to go on much longer. He’d drank rather a lot last night - still trying to get over the Countess de Stael - and hadn’t had a chance for breakfast this morning. Bile rises from his stomach.</p><p>He slips off the track and down into a muddy ditch after tripping over a rock. He manages to catch himself on his palms – lest he mar his beautiful features. Blood beads there.</p><p>
  <em>Ow.</em>
</p><p>Shouting urges him into a limping run, a rock in his boot rather than a turned ankle. There’s a building, he can hide there for safety! As he approaches over verdant but icy crisp grassland, he realises it’s more of a ruin. A tower maybe? Or a temple?</p><p>The litany of shouts behind him stop suddenly, replaced by an indignant, “Now hang on!”</p><p>Jaskier risks a look back.</p><p>The man is standing there, looking simultaneously apprehensive and flushed red in anger. “I can be reasonable, young man. You come back here and marry my sister.”</p><p>Jaskier can vaguely see said sister – Lucretzia, 27, blonde, a fabulous weaver and embroiderer, and an excellent amateur masseuse – approaching over the hilltops. She hadn’t looked best pleased with her brother this morn, when Jaskier had been making his goodbyes, so Jaskier rather thinks this man has an overinflated sense of ego and power if he thinks he can bring around such a matrimonial occasion.</p><p>“No, thank you.”</p><p>“Very well then, <em>knave</em>,” the man sneers, “Continue on to your … <em>sanctuary,”</em> and he raises his crossbow.</p><p>Oh <em>fuck</em>.</p><p>Jaskier runs and just avoids a bolt to the back by diving through a ruined window.</p><p>He presses his back against a cold stone wall, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He chances a glance over the stone sill of the window. Surprisingly, Lucretzia’s brother hasn’t reloaded his crossbow.</p><p>He’s just standing there with a look of grim satisfaction on his face.</p><p>A horse rides up and Lucretzia exclaims, “You didn’t drive him <em>there, brother!”</em> her angry voice was punctuated by the sounds of her drawing her horse to a stop and her dismount, her boots hitting the floor audibly.</p><p>“I gave him a choice, Lucy. I told him he could stay and marry you or…” and he laughs cruelly.</p><p>The sound of Lucretzia’s capable and strong hands striking a fleshy familial shoulder rings out in the cold morning air.</p><p>“How could you!! He’ll die in there! People who go in don’t come out!” She’s crying, out of anger rather than grief, but Jaskier likes the sentiment all the same.</p><p>Wait, die?</p><p>Die, <em>die?</em></p><p>Steeling himself, Jaskier turned to take in the, for the want of a better word, room. Was a room a room if had no roof but was instead sheltered by a canopy of leaves? It’s beautiful here. A large tree marks the centre of the courtyard, it’s leaves filtering the sunlight to bathe the sanctuary in golden light.</p><p>He doesn’t <em>feel</em> scared?</p><p>A whiplash of emotions and feeling crashes over him. Exhaustion crashes over him as adrenaline spikes away. Hunger and tiredness hit him as he leans against the stone pillar. In between one thing and another he didn’t get much sleep last night.</p><p>He feels content. Peaceful. There was a scent of spring wildflowers.</p><p>It’s lonely.</p><p>A tranquil pocket in which to rest his head, calm.</p><p>He stumbles and falls to his knees. His blood-stained palms brace him against the tree roots as he falls, so very tired.</p><p>His head rests against a knot in the roots.</p><p>He sleeps.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>His dreams are troubled. A frisson of lightning, blood and fractured glass, candlelight burning dimly and flickering – it looks warm but it feels cold – and a deep seated aching pain up his shoulders and in his jaw.</p><p>Very cold, chill to the bone.</p><p>He awakes shaking, like he’s been bound and shoved somewhere shadowy <em>and twisted</em>. He awakes to the dim afternoon sunlight dappling through the leaves.</p><p>He takes a proper look around.</p><p>4 walls made of stone, gaps where planes of glass have been lost to the passage of time behind him. Ahead of him he can see that it’s less of a ruin than he thought. There’s an arched walkway set back under walls around the edge of the courtyard, aging timber still standing strong. There looks like there might even be a fully roofed room back there. The courtyard, which he guesses was once paved but is now covered in leaf mulch, has recently covered holes all over, as if someone has been digging.</p><p>And the tree, which now Jaskier looks on, is several saplings twisted together to grow into one magnificent force of nature.</p><p>His stomach grumbles.</p><p>There’s a shuffling of leaves, on the other side of the trunk.</p><p>“Hello?” Jaskier props his lute against the bark. “Who’s there?” He feels refreshed, despite his hunger.</p><p>He hears the shuffling again, footsteps.</p><p>“I can hear you,” he calls out playfully.</p><p>“Go away,” a voice commands.</p><p>Jaskier’s never been good at obeying.</p><p>“May I sit here. It’s so beautiful?”</p><p>“No. Get out.”</p><p>A beat passes in which Jaskier considered his future. He’s feeling slightly lightheaded.</p><p>“I do not wish to offend, dear lady, but I am hiding here out of sanctuary. If I may remain a while to gather my strength, I would consider it a just kindness...?”</p><p>There’s no reply.</p><p>“I suppose I must be infringing, intruding, upon your tranquillity,” he rambles. A local girl, perhaps, hiding from the unpleasantness of everyday life, “And for that I must apologise.”</p><p>There’s hardly any sound. No birds arguing in bushes or atop tiled roofs. No squirrels scrambling around causing trouble. Just a very slight shuffling of feet.</p><p>“It’s so peaceful here,” he continues, “So beautiful. I’m a poet, and never at a loss for words, and yet …”</p><p>The burning desire to compose is there, working it’s way up from his stomach through his windpipe to the back of his throat. His hands artfully twitching for either his lute or his quill.</p><p>But he can’t, it’s too much. The urge to compose is soothed by a contentedness that caresses every limb, from his pinky finger to this little toe.</p><p>No that’s not right, contentedness is giving over to irritation, anger and resignation.</p><p>That’s odd.</p><p>“How long has this place been standing? No doubt ruined in a fire. The tree is a masterpiece of topiary -is that the word? – truly!”</p><p>A young woman steps out from behind the tree.</p><p>The first thing he notices is her defiant glare, daring him to say something. Her violet eyes piercing into his soul and exposing his stuttering heart and breathless lungs under the setting sun. She’s wearing a dark green dress with grey sleeves and has a boxy black fringe that hides a lot of her face. She’s in her 20’s, he’d guess.</p><p>She has a misaligned jaw and a curved spine that offsets her shoulder.</p><p>“Oh, hello!” He says. There’s something not quite human about her, an ageless quality, the unexplained emotions he’s been feeling, he guesses, originate from her.</p><p>She’s standing there, waiting for something.</p><p>“You’re not going to kill me, are you? Only Lucretzia mentioned people tend to die in here… is this a temple? Are you – you’re not Melitele, are you?” If she was, he had a lot of apologising to do.</p><p>“You – you think I’m a goddess?” she asks bluntly. Her voice is light and melodic.</p><p>“You’re not?”</p><p>They stare at each other.</p><p>“Well, I sort of thought, you know, the shrine. The fearful reverence. The tele-empathy?” He rambles, then, remembering himself, bows low, “I am the bard, Jaskier. May I request the honour of your name, milady...?”</p><p>“Yennefer… just Yennefer.”</p><p>“Well, Yennefer, you have a lovely home,” because this is her home, he feels it in his bones. Her very being infuses these walls, feeds her tree.</p><p>“I won’t be mocked, bard,” but she’s looking blankly at him, a carefully schooled façade, rather than annoyed.</p><p>“I’m not,” he proclaims gently, then, “Uh, <em>why</em> am I not dead? Not that I don’t appreciate it…”</p><p>She stares at him, then seems to make a decision, standing as straight as she is able, “I have need of you.”</p><p>“What for…?” He asks, drawing out his vowels. He can’t imagine being singled out by a goddess is a <em>good</em> thing.</p><p>“You’re my … acolyte now,” she decides and when he begins to protest, “You bled on my sacred being.” She gestures to the tree.</p><p>What.</p><p>He remembers vaguely falling on some bramble this morning and drawing blood.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>“What is, uh, likely to happen if I, uh, don’t …” he stumbles back a little.</p><p>“Well for starters, I’d let your lover’s brother shoot you with his crossbow. For dessert I’d guide lightning to strike you.”</p><p>Wow. That was… wow.</p><p>“I’m at your command, my lady,” he stutters. There’s one thing not believing in gods and goddesses, there’s another thing being threatened with certain death by one.</p><p>“I need you to find someone for me. A pig farmer in Aedirn. I want you to kill him.” She gives him a name and a village.</p><p>Right.</p><p>Murder.</p><p>“I’ll do my best, milady,” he says weakly.</p><p>“Good. Now get out. I don’t want to see you until again until it’s done,” and she dismisses him, walking away from him with indifferent confidence into the roofed room.</p><p>He’ll just go and do that then. He bows low and leaves the sanctuary of his lady’s temple. As he walked, hungrily, away, his thoughts swirled with the set of her mouth, the shade of her eyes, the command in her voice. She had him completely at her whim. It was like falling in love; was this religion?</p><p>Would he kill for her?</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Yennefer breathed in a sigh of relief. The bard had gone. She could get back to her research. The book had to be here somewhere. Every single other document had somehow helped her in her long confinement here. On day one she’d found a map of the temple, day two a book on digging trenches for privies, day 3 breadmaking. Alchemical compounds to make muscle salve for days her back. Crafting diagrams to make more clothes out of the curtains. Sewing for beginners. Animal trapping. Fishing (from the small stream that crossed the back of the property, she had to fish out of the window but she managed it.) She’d wanted to be good at something and now she found she could turn her hand at almost anything.</p><p>She didn’t even really <em>need</em> to eat, but she could. She wasn’t sure what she was, not quite a ghost, not quite a person. What else could she be doing but haunting these halls?</p><p>Every single book, for every single occasion, whenever she needed them. They appeared quite randomly, as did the food stores at first until she learned to conjure more. The curtain material never seemed to run out. She lay awake and night wondering, wondering, what the hell this place was, what was it’s purpose? How did she get here?</p><p>Right now, she needed to get out. A handwritten footnote, at the bottom of a book on laying out the dead, mentioned a book on necromancy and curse breaking. She had no need for laying out as the dead villagers were, she supposed poetically, absorbed by the tree. (Some villagers tried to poison her or taunted her by leaving food and wine, just outside the grounds. She didn’t touch it.)</p><p>So, why else would she have this book if not to direct her towards her true prize?</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier expected the lustre, the wonder, to wear off as it did with his other affairs, his other loves. It didn’t. A pain in his shoulder plagued him as he walked, a determined feeling he couldn’t quite attribute to budding love, growing in his chest. As he entered Aedirn he realised quite suddenly that he fully intended to find this pig farmer and murder him. All because he’d been asked.</p><p>This was madness, but he wanted her to smile at him. He was royally fucked. He’d be hanged for sure.</p><p>Maybe he could make it look like an accident?</p><p>He entered the village she’d named. It was small so it shouldn’t make it difficult for him to find their pig farmer. After very little inquiry, he found him.</p><p>“You are the pig farmer?” Jaskier asked the man who’d opened the door of the little farm. He was in his 60’s, had a beard, and a bald head as shiny as an egg.</p><p>“Yes. That’s me?” He asked in a way that suggested, why does a bard, dressed in mint green silk, want to know?</p><p>“Uh, is your name Niklaus?” Jaskier asked gingerly. He’d decided to go for poison but was now reconsidering. This man had a family. He didn’t want to hurt them. He really didn’t.</p><p>“No. My name’s Tobias.”</p><p>“Right,” Relief and trepidation shook through him, “I’m looking for Niklaus, the pig farmer, do you know where he is?”</p><p>The confusion on the man’s face cleared, “Niklaus was my father. He died 30 years back.”</p><p>“Oh, uh, right,” now Jaskier was confused, “Uh, how?”</p><p>“Well, if you must know,” Tobias said, looking justifiably annoyed, “My mother killed him. Everyone around here knows. Good day to ye,” and he slammed the door in Jaskier’s face.</p><p>Right, well, he was dead? Did that … count?</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier climbed, gingerly, over the glassless window of temple. He’d come prepared this time, with an offering and everything.</p><p>“Lady Yennefer, it’s me, Jaskier?” he stands by the tree, feeling a little foolish until she appears.</p><p>“I told you not to come back!” she’s standing in the doorway.</p><p>“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure … Now, uh, the bad news, <em>I</em> didn’t kill Niklaus! Good news, he’s already dead! He was killed by his wife 30 years ago! I, uh, brought a bit of his spine, as proof…?” He’d figured that a) a man couldn’t live long without his spine, and b) it was a little more portable than the leg bone he’d first thought of bringing, though with that he could have at least fashioned himself a cane.</p><p>He was never attending another exhumation as long as he lived.</p><p>She looked a little stunned, “He was … murdered?”</p><p>“Uh, yes, a meat skewer to the neck, I gathered,” he’d already written a ballad about it, a wife’s revenge upon a monster of a man. He’d, allegedly, sold their own daughter into slavery, about 50 years ago. (The Innkeeper had a fantastic memory for detail and lovely hands to boot.)</p><p>People in that little village still remembered that poor girl, laid hypocritical flowers out for her every year after the farmer’s death.</p><p>“What’s that you’ve brought with you?”</p><p>Jaskier grinned and unwrapped his parcel, “Honey wine from Novigrad. Olive bread from the bakery about 5 miles from here. And, uh, 2 types of cheese. I brought a selection; I don’t much know what goddesses prefer...?” He knelt before her, next to her tree, laying out his offerings.</p><p>“These are … acceptable,” and she lowered herself to the floor to join him in the picnic.</p><p>Jaskier’s heart swelled, he’d thought she might be vengeful that he hadn’t completed her task.</p><p>They ate, cutting up pieces of the cheese to eat on the bread. He’d neglected to bring cups, so they take turns to drink out of the bottle.</p><p>She’d got a leaf resting on her hair. The light playing beatifically off her skin tone.</p><p>What is she the goddess <em>of</em> anyway?</p><p>Jaskier broke the silence to recount the times he’d visited the temples of Melitele, Nenneke’s scolding of him whenever he dared smile at one of her girls, and does his best to compare the architecture there to the temple he’s currently in. She seems to enjoy that, chipping in about a woman named Tissaia, and a place called Aretuza – he’s heard the name before, is that the name of the mountain where all the deities live?</p><p>He asked her about her day, very pedestrian for a goddess – drawing water from well, digging in the garden (he suspected not for vegetables), and magically scourging the place of the rats that seem to return as regularly as the sun rises.</p><p>He’s just got around to his adventure of only last Tuesday - when he’d been chased out of a wood by an angry leshen and it’s wolves - as the sun begins to set.</p><p>“I slipped so many times, I almost fell into a brook! I’d have caught hypothermia and then where would I be? Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask, why is it so seasonably warm, in here? Outside these walls it’s so bitterly cold I’ve been using the frost to chill the wine?”</p><p>She freezes slightly, as if realising the non-existent cold. She draws back and stands, centring herself and burning with a sudden flickering white flame, the calm contentedness and cosy smouldering of before gone.</p><p>“Leave me,” she commands curtly.</p><p>“R-right,” a cold, sick, writhing curls in his stomach. The atmosphere had changed so suddenly. What had he done?</p><p>She goes back to her room.</p><p>It’s nearing night so he can’t very well go very far, Gors Velen is about 5 miles away, so he curls up under the walkway in his bedroll.</p><p>It’s not chilly as such, but there is a bite now that wasn’t there before. A choking, breathless, feeling in his throat, that he can’t attribute to his own feeling, plagues him throughout the night. He awakes with an urge to violently rend and tear, tears that aren’t his own stream down his face.</p><p>He stands, practically to attention, as Yennefer walks outside mid-morning.</p><p>“You’re still here,” she sounds defeated, surprised and wary.</p><p>“I – yes. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I did not wish to offend you!”</p><p>She looks at him, her jaw wobbles slightly. “Fine,” she says, with an air of forced disinterest, “You can fetch me the tears of a Witcher.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I command you to fetch me the tears of a Witcher. I need them.”</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>“Is that your concern?” She says imperiously.</p><p>He guesses not.</p><p>“Your wish is my command, my lady.”</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>He meets up with Geralt in the spring as usual. The winter spent in Kaer Morhen had evidently been spent well. The Witcher smiles at Jaskier tiredly, he’s still not sleeping then, but looking much more rested than he had the previous autumn.</p><p>Which is excellent because Geralt had been crabby to the extreme when they had parted; Geralt feeling very needled about his lack of sleep and not appreciating Jaskier’s attempts to get Geralt to address his Child of Surprise situation.</p><p>“Good winter?” Jaskier asks after they’ve hugged in greeting, Jaskier pressing a chaste kiss to the Witcher’s cheek.</p><p>“Yes. I’m sorry I was short with you. Eskel and I had a talk, about it. He offered some good advice. I have a plan to go back to Cintra. Not to take the child but to touch base and assure Calanthe I don’t intend to meddle.”</p><p>Jaskier grinned, genuinely happy for his friend, “Well I am glad!” then, after a beat, “Now, I need you to cry!”</p><p>Geralt furrowed his brow, “… What?”</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p>Ironically, the bone might help. Yennefer has unearthed, quite literally as it was buried beneath the crypt, a book.</p><p>It is, of course, a religious book deemed by the monks who may, or may not have, lived here to be far too racy for everyday reading. It wasn’t, of course, racy <em>racy</em>, she’d found those confiscated books long ago atop a wardrobe with a false back. She’d used the boring ones for lighting papers.</p><p>This book was on necromancy.</p><p>
  <span class="u">Ingredients to Release a Tethered Spirit</span>
</p><p>She scanned the list. Spectre dust might be difficult to come by unless her own dead skin counted. The object of unfinished business. Her piece of shit stepfather certainly counted as unfinished business, her first thought plan for leaving Aretuza had been to go back to Aedirn and murder him in the bloodiest way possible. (She felt a warm feeling of pride and love and satisfaction in her heart thinking of her mother driving a meat skewer into That Man’s throat.)</p><p>Celandine grew everywhere, that’d be easy to collect.</p><p>An image of Anica flashed before her mind, they could have been good friends<em>, </em>she thought, if she hadn’t – hadn’t…</p><p>Tissaia de Vries’s words echo to her, <em>‘Sometimes a flower is just a flower. The best thing it can do for us is die.’ </em>Anica’s face had crumpled, she had just wanted to go home, like Yennefer had. Yennefer, her spectral presence watching over Tissaia’s shoulder, hadn’t been able to comfort her. She wondered what had happened to her.</p><p>Looking at the list she decided to try out her dead skin on the morrow after a decent night’s sleep. Her back had been troubling her especially of late, and when digging out the crypt she had perhaps overtaxed herself, hadn’t paced herself. She’d have to fashion herself a cane or something out of the tree, that may help.</p><p>Or it might just cause even more pain, she thought miserably as she drifted off to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Yennefer awoke to the sound of clattering and the twang of a lute.</p><p>
  <em>Again?</em>
</p><p>“Lady Yennefer? I bring you your tears!”</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>She appears next to him and makes him jump, much to her minor joy. Portalling saved walking which saved shoulder pain.</p><p>He bows and presents her a vial of liquid, “Witcher tears, madame.”</p><p>She takes the vial and swirls it like she knows what she’s looking for, “Bullshit. These are your tears, bard.”</p><p>“I would never!” he puffs up, “These are the tears of Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, who has been my companion and muse for 15 years now,” he trails off a bit, dejected, “Isn’t that why you entrusted <em>I</em> to this task?”</p><p>Yennefer doesn’t mention that he’s the only one idiot enough to walk into her clearing and mistake her for a goddess.</p><p>“Everyone knows Witcher’s can’t cry.”</p><p>“It <em>is</em> true they are emotionally repressed bastards, but, BUT they <em>are</em> susceptible to chopping onions as the next man, especially with their heightened senses. These, I confess, are onion tears, rather than ones of grief or mirth.”</p><p>He looked nervous under his performative widespread indignance.</p><p>She pockets the vial. The tears hadn’t been the point.</p><p>Why wouldn’t he leave?</p><p>Why did he keep coming back?</p><p>She sent him to kill a man already dead and he returned with a piece of spinal cord. She sent him after Witcher tears, and he returned less than a month later with half a vial full.</p><p>Was she to send him after a golden dragon scale to get rid of him?</p><p>She should have killed him when he first came, like she had the others. Only he hadn’t screamed. He hadn’t shuddered. He’d greeted her with a smile. Her lonely heart had warmed and beamed in tandem with the suns bright rays.</p><p>He'd called her goddess.</p><p>“Fuck off. Leave me alone. I’m no goddess.”</p><p>“You aren’t?” he says, surprised.</p><p>“No. So fuck off.”</p><p>“What are you then?” he looks genuinely interested, rather than betrayed. Like she hasn’t sent him on 2 successive fool’s errands.</p><p>“A wraith. Like the ones your precious Witcher cuts down with his silver sword,” she punctuates each word with a poison that doesn’t seem to land.</p><p>“You don’t seem very … wraithlike. No, they are far scarier than you – not that you aren’t scary,” he adds as she glares at him, “You just don’t look it!”</p><p>She doesn’t know what to say to that. Should she be insulted or flattered? She settles for annoyed.</p><p>“Are you cursed? I’d reckon you’re cursed, in my professional opinion,” she rolls her eyes, “So … you’re cursed to roam these halls until…?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“Right. How…?” he still looks so very interested.</p><p>She deflates angrily, “I was to be a student at Aretuza. I – I didn’t want to be there, and I don’t want to be here either.”</p><p>Jaskier observes the faint lines on her wrists as she turns them over for him to see. A feeling washes over him, a feeling of a control once had, now lost. A vague shape of a primly dressed woman standing over her body lying in a pool of blood, just a second too late to save it.</p><p>A whispered, intrusive and angry, <em>Four Marks.</em></p><p>“<em>After</em> my death, I observed the lessons of my living, I suppose, classmates to be. One lesson was to catch lightning in bottle. I – I caught it within <em>me</em> instead, even though I was dead.”</p><p>He could see it, imagine it, rather. The woman beside him grabbing a forked bolt in a tight grip and bending it to her will. He can also see what really happened: another girl had caught the lightning and lost control, sending it wild right through Yennefer. The mistress <em>pulled</em> and sent the lightning out of the aperture in the ceiling and Yennefer with it.</p><p>“It shattered. And then I was here. Not alive. Not a wraith. Just me and that tree.”</p><p>“And, uh, how long has that been?”</p><p>“How the fuck do I know? I’m stuck here, bored out of my mind. I’ve read all the books in that study 50 times. I’ve tried leaving, I can’t. I’ve tried cutting down the tree, it just gains another trunk. I’ve tried cutting <em>me</em> down, I’ve tried portalling. I’ve killed about 10 villagers who dared trespass upon my home only to scream at the sight of me. For the last 6 months an idiot bard has been my only real source of entertainment. And last week I finally found the book on necromancy that might help, only to be interrupted by you!”</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Once upon a time, in a ruined temple in a cold and windy part of Temeria, there was a sapling. It was barely a tree, just a sprig with 2 picturesque little leaves breaking out from between 4 icy paving slabs.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Then it came.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A static energy hung in the air before a white-hot bolt <b>struck</b>.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hitting the sapling, it <b>burned</b>, it’s veins breaking through the soft green stem and leaves in a flash of white hot <b>pain</b>. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>If the little plant had a heart it would be stuttering. Live or die.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She felt so alive in this moment that all thoughts of dying, of broken mirrors and blood - of Tissaia de Vries, Four Marks, and daisies - left her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Live. She got to live.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The sapling sprouted anew.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When morning dawned, Yennefer awoke to find herself curled around the sapling.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Where was she? The warm open aloneness of a courtyard brought a smile to her tearstained face. Gone were the cold rooms and judgement of Aretuza. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She was free.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>There was still wine left over from his last visit. They warmed it over her stove and sat in what amounted to her study, a screened off section in the great hall that made up the only serviceable room. There were other screens partitioning off a bedroom and what remained of the long table and benches that had probably taken up the entire room in past centuries.</p><p>After the wine is served, they sit looking at each other a moment.</p><p>“So … did you need the Witcher tears to break the curse?”</p><p>She looks suddenly regretfully mutinous, “No.”</p><p>“Oh, then, why…?” He looks at her over his mug of warm wine, it wasn’t really the right sort to be drunk as mulled wine, but the weather was still on the bitter side and his hands were cold.</p><p>“I was trying to get rid of you. I may not know how long it’s been, but I do know that that piece of shit would be dead by now. I didn’t know you’d come back with a piece of his spine!” She was angry, that was clear.</p><p>“Right, oh,” he curled his hands tighter around his mug, “Well.” That. That hurt, actually. People did tell him to fuck off, even people he was half in love with, but, well, it never felt good.</p><p>As if offering a dog a bone, she conceded, “The spine might help, though.”</p><p>“Really,” he said desperately, hoping for a scrap of affection, “So there <em>is </em>a spell, to break the curse?”</p><p>She sighs, rifles through her desk, and hands him the ingredient list.</p><p>“Well, spectre dust – I can get that off Geralt, his pockets are always teeming with the stuff-”</p><p>“I have spectre dust.”</p><p>“-The unfinished business – I suppose that’s the spine? Celendine, easy-peasy. Uh, blood of – what <em>is </em>that word?” It’s smudged over.</p><p>“Janissary. As in follower or disciple. Fuck.” She’s flicking back to the front of the book.</p><p>“Why ‘fuck’ if you don’t mind my asking?”</p><p>“This book is meant for resurrecting Kings or Gods,” not her, she thinks self-deprecatingly and which he hears ring through their mental bond.</p><p>Wait, mental bond.</p><p>“I thought <em>I </em>was your acolyte? I – I bled for you!” he might be fudging the details slightly, true, but come on!</p><p>She stares at him.</p><p>“I went all the way to Aedirn, on your wishes! Then back to Kaedwen to meet Geralt a little earlier than usual! That, I tell you, is not an easy journey. On foot. With a lute at your back.” He’d actually been getting sympathy pain from her left shoulder the entirety of his mission.</p><p>Holy fuck and she’d been digging ditches and everything, she’d probably had his sympathy blisters.</p><p>He faltered, “Doesn’t that, uh, count for something?”</p><p>“It won’t work,” she proclaimed, though clearly readying herself to perform the ritual anyway.</p><p>“You, my dear <em>goddess</em>, are a cynic.”</p><p>“I’m not a goddess. And you’re an insufferable optimist.”</p><p>“Good. I’m more than happy to open a, well not a vein, nor a finger actually - I need those – but…”</p><p>They eventually compromise, between Yennefer making a small cut on his arm and Jaskier just waiting to get a paper cut or something, by reopening his 2 day old shaving scab.</p><p>The bone rests upon the dust and the blood is smeared on rather than artfully dripped. Jaskier is, for once, thankful that practicality won over poeticism. He does, however, sprinkle the celandine petals on as beautifully as he can manage.</p><p>“Hey, uh, before we, uh, do this, what is it that you’re planning to do, after?”</p><p>“What do you mean? I want everything. A life. To be good at something, to have a purpose outside these walls!!” There was a melancholy, of words unsaid, hanging in the air. <em>Something </em>she was trying not to think about. <em>To belong somewhere.</em></p><p>“Oh, okay,” and he watched as she set the bowl alight. Her past, in the forms of bones and dust, the flowers, and the, well, essence-de-Jaskier, went up like a bonfire at Savoine.</p><p>They should probably have done this outside.</p><p>Yennefer is screaming. The roof is shuddering under a sudden pressure. Jaskier grips her arm but she shakes him to the floor.</p><p>The hair on his arms stands on end. His skin feels raw and fragile. His claps his hands over his ears and shuts his eyes tightly as a white light burns all it touches as it crashes through the roof.</p><p>Tiles and timber crash around them, Jaskier manages to crawl under the table. Yennefer is wide eyed, consumed by the power, eyes fixed to the ceiling in rapture.</p><p>Thunder rolls. Another fork of lightening rends through the roof.</p><p>Jaskier blacks out, from a direct hit or a stray rock he doesn’t know.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“And <b>that</b> is how I died -”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What, no! You can’t end it there!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“ – the first time at least. Oh alright, but I’m editing heavily, some things are not meant for small ears!”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>He awakes and sits up disorientated. White light fades from his stinging eyes. He’s in a field.</p><p>He has a splitting headache, and his cheek really hurts. Absently he brings his hand up, it comes away bloody. He’d cut himself shaving, he remembered.</p><p>An ‘ow’ sobers him up a little, “Yennefer?” He scrambles to feet, more akin to a faun than a human, and wobbles as he goes over to her.</p><p>She’s getting to her own feet, looking dazed. She looks the same as she always has, if very, very, tired and stained in wood chip and pieces of slate, “What?”</p><p>“Oh good, you’re … here. Are you – are you free?” They look around the field. There’s the tree, round about where it would be in the courtyard if they were still standing in the study. Only…?</p><p>“The fuck?”</p><p>The entire temple is gone. Not burnt down. Not a wreck or ruin. Just, not there anymore, like it had never been built.</p><p>“That – that’s weird.”</p><p>“You’re bleeding,” Yennefer says absently, looking around. She walks to the tree and pats it slightly. “There’s a place of power, right here. That explains why I was bound here.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he pulls out his handkerchief and stems the flow, “Do you feel, odd? Like, well, you’ve been stuck by lightening?”</p><p>She levels a glare at him, but her eyes are bright and full of life and expectation.</p><p>“So,” he says, “What now?” he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s no longer fully human and if she’d been ‘just a trainee mage’, rather than a goddess, before she was certainly more deified now. Those were flowers growing at her feet for fucks sake.</p><p>What did that mean for him? He felt human. Human-adjacent, maybe. Subtly he prodded himself in his stomach. Felt real enough.</p><p>“<em>Anything</em>.”</p><p>She took two steps toward him and Jaskier allowed himself to be pulled into an adrenaline fuelled embrace which he returned with enthusiasm. She kissed him with the mouth of little experience but great enthusiasm and clear preferences. Jaskier allowed himself to be pulled down onto a bed of buttercups under the cool shadow of the tree, the golden light still dappling the grass around it.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>“… <em>and then <b>we went to sleep</b>.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“What??”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We had a nap, after all curse breaking is tiring work.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re no fun!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Do <b>you really</b> want to hear about-”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Okay, no, no, gross!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll continue then…”</em>
</p><p>~</p><p>“Where are you going next?” Yennefer asked him as they meandered down the road towards Gors Velen.</p><p>“Oxenfurt maybe. Might try and find Geralt. You?”</p><p>“I’m going back to Aretuza. This time, I <em>want </em>to go there. To learn more. To show them what I’m capable of.”</p><p>“To ask Tissaia if she deified you or if that, uh, just happened?” A lot was unexplained about their little adventure. The disappeared ruin. Not-ghost Yennefer who appeared to have a little more chaos than was mage appropriate, practically bursting at the seams.</p><p>“I’ve not been deified, you ridiculous man,” she said scathing and matter of fact. He shrugged. Belief was very powerful and who knew, exactly, what being struck by lightning (twice) did to you?</p><p>“Will I see you again?” he asked, wondering if this were to be the last time he’d glimpse at such a figure of resolution and beauty.</p><p>“Probably. I’d like to meet this Witcher of yours, who cries at onions and carries spectre dust around in his pockets.”</p><p>“I’d be happy to introduce you.”</p><p>They came to a crossroad. North to Gors Velen. South to Oxenfurt.</p><p>He bowed before her, “You know how to find me.” He winked at her.</p><p>“Yes. Follow the sound of a cat being murdered into a tavern of ill repute. Goodbye, Jaskier.”</p><p>She opened a portal, waved one last time, and stepped through it, before he even had time to scoff in outrage.</p><p>Jaskier laughed, then he hummed. He had a new song on the horizon. A daring knight, 3 tasks to save a trapped mage. He’d have to put in some sort of battle maybe, a fiend perhaps. A curse broken.</p><p>And he wended his way onward.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“… and they all lived Happily Ever After.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Codswallop!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That <b>is</b> what happened, Yennefer, do tell him!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m still <b>not</b> a goddess, bard. Cirilla, where are you going?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Kitchen.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No reason at all. Jaskier, you’ll tell the story of Geralt and Yennefer’s first meeting when I get back, right?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Of course.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“If she comes back with onions, Jaskier, I’ll-”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What, my dear, cry at me?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, I’ll tell Yen-”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tell me what?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Noo! Oh no! Don’t tell her <b>that</b>!! That, Geralt, would be indecorous! Oi! Get off, you lout!! Yen, Y-E-N!! Save me! I’ve got Witcher spit - he licked me! – all over my hand! Why are you laughing? I am in <b>M</b>ortal <b>P</b>eril Here!”</em>
</p><p>~</p><p>And they all lived happily, for the time being at least.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments and kudos are appreciated, thank you!!</p><p>Now that this is no longer anonymous, please find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta</p></blockquote></div></div>
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